


Tales from the Bearlands

by ScarfyTheShipster



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bears, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Conedy, Crack, Gen, Silly, Writing, this is the weirdest thing I've ever written god I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8518321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarfyTheShipster/pseuds/ScarfyTheShipster
Summary: Timothy Lawrence needs to speak out about the new "heroic" CEO of Hyperion: Jack. He writes his own story and reveals some of Jack's character.However, he can't write events as they were without breaching his contract, so he and Janey decide on a solution.Bears.





	

Tim may have worn Jack's face, but he was still himself. Timothy Lawrence, the kid with a writing degree. He had to let the universe know the truth about Handsome Jack, now that he'd gained power. He couldn't stand the lies, the propoganda, his face plastered everywhere.

However, it wasn't as simple as that.

"I need your help, Janey. Please. Before you leave Elpis."

Janey Springs faced Tim, turning from a box of belongings she was packing. They weren't the closest of friends, but they enjoyed the other's company. "What is it?"

"I'm working on a project. I'm going to write a story to tell the truth about Handsome Jack."

"Ooooh, you want a co-writer! Of course."

Tim nodded eagerly. "Yes! But the problem is, I can't breach my contract. I'll have to change places, names, events, you see what I mean."

"Oh. Hmmmm." Janey thought for a moment. "Well, you're here, so you must've thought of a solution, right?"

Tim beamed with happiness. "Bears."

Janey stared at him for a little too long before grinning widely. "I'll help you, but only if I can get smashed while writing about bears at 2 AM."

"Sure, it'll be funnier that way!" exclaimed Tim, relieved she agreed at all. "I've always loved bears. I used to write fantasy epics back in college. Oooh this'll be so fun! We just have to remember to convey the true events as best we can through a lens of bears." 

"Holy shit." Janey pulled out a pack of hard cider and her echo device, beckoning Tim to sit by her. "Let's do this." 

Tales From the Bearlands:

Once upon a time, on a peaceful planet in the far reaches of the galaxy, a young bear named Timfurry Lawclaws was in serious debt from going to Bear College.

He has a long quest ahead, but would like to point out that while there are many antagonizing elements to this absolutely fictional story, that perhaps this all could've been avoided if college was reasonably priced. 

Back to our young and innocent protagonist, Timfurry. He had auburn fur and small spots on his face, most unique for a bear. At the age of 26 years he still lived with his mum, not because no one liked him and he was poor, but because he loved her very much. All Timfurry wanted was to make his mother and little sisters happy and debt free, so he accepted an offer that was too good to be true. 

A letter came in the mail on fancy parchment with flowing delicate calligraphy, offering a high paying job with no experience needed, the whole thing absolutely looking like an organ harvesting organization. Timfurry didn't feel he had a choice but to accept. 

After the fact, as he recounts this tale, Timfurry wished they'd just taken his kidneys and left him alone.

"Wha- where am I?" Timfurry awoke in an infirmirary, dark and unfamiliar. He painfully tried to move his leaden limbs but gave up the struggle, resting back on the nesting. Of all things, his face hurt the most. "What happened?"

"Aaaaah, you've awakened!" proclaimed a voice. Timfurry blearily looked at a bear looming over him. "Yes, your transformation is complete! He'll be most pleased."

"Who?"

Many would call the fearsome bear Timfurry met a hero. That he saved his kingdom, with his eyes set on the world. That he's a hero, whose ends will justify his means. He is not.

Timfurry is here to tell the truth.

That bear was Jim.

-~-

Janey raised her eyebrows at Tim. "Jim? Really?"

"I told you I have to change names." 

She sighed, resigned to it. "Fine. But maybe make it sound more like Handsome Jack. Except not Handsome, yanno."

Tim grinned. "How about Aggressive Jim?"

Janey snorted and sprayed cider out of her mouth with a choked laugh, which Tim took as a yes.

-~-

That bear was Aggressive Jim. He was handsome, with an angular snout and dark fur. Much to Timfurry's shock, he saw the exact same bear when he looked into a mirror the other bear held up in front of him. "Perfect, isn't he?"

"Yes," growled Jim. He stood tall over Timfurry, armed with a crossbow and a quiver of wicked bolts. "Well, kiddo? What do you think?"

"I- I'm supposed to be orange," said Timfurry, feeling sad at losing his natural fur colors.

"Eurgh, you sound like a nerd!" Jim grabbed a vial and thrust it at his assistant bear. "Whip up something to fix that." 

"Why are you doing this?" Timfurry's head felt fuzzy. Had he really signed up for this?

Jim turned to where there would probably be a window if they weren't in a dungeon and struck a pose. "You are now me. Timfurry, who names their kid that? Well, it doesn't matter because Timfurry doesn't exist anymore. From now on, your name will be Jim. You're my double as I venture to retake the kingdom, and save Australia!"

-~-

"Australia?" Janey thought about it for a moment. "That's a nice name."

Tim was pleased. "Yeah, I needed a nice fantasy name. Good thing there's nowhere in the whole galaxy called Australia."

-~-

Timfurry reluctantly drank a potion that tasted of bitterness and depression as Jim continued. "Australia is infested with giant bees, guarding their treasure troves of honey containing magical properties. Some think we should leave them be, but I say we must strike! I'm giving you this explanation in case you've been living under a rock all your life." 

He hadn't been living under a rock all his life. "I lived in a cave, inside a rock," growled Tim, much deeper than he expected. "My inside opinion is that you're really after the treasure hives they guard." Timfurry furrowed his brow. "My- what's wrong with my voice?"

"You're now my exact copy!" proclaimed Jim. "You'll serve me in every way, as my defense and filling in for me in public life. A king can't be everywhere at once, even if he wants to."

Timfurry knew that whatever Jim was, it wasn't royalty. The Royal bear family looked far uglier. "You're not a king though."

Jim growled low in his throat. "I will be." 

Timfurry then learned the pain of being Jim. Jim boned hot bear babes, killed people he didn't like, and sucked mass dick as a person. Timfurry was a virgin and a nice person, so sucking Dick in all aspects of like was difficult. Like, shit. He had to pick up chicks and not even get their bear addresses the fuck kinda life is that?

But HOO boy. Jim got a bearfriend. She was big, ferocious, kinky, and scared the living shit out of Timfurry. Her name was Nicki Beardam, and she had a whip on her hip she brought into the bedroom. Nicki liked guns, sex, and poor life choices as much as Jim, so they were perfect together. 

-~-

"Woah Tim!" Tim had found the hard liquor Janey kept for special occasions and decided to try his first shot of vodka, making an unforgettable face and gagging noise. 

"Uh-" he coughed and drank cider to wash the taste out of his mouth. "Sorry, that got rather candid, didn't it?"

Janey giggled and covered her mouth. "If you're too out of it, we could go over plot points!"

"Uhhhhh, okay." Tim looked up from his ECHO and nodded. "What we got?"

"First of all, Athena, who maybe you could rename Alex or something, is the most charming, strong, beautiful, sexiest bear in the whole story."

"Sexy. Got it."

"And her girlfriend, the, uh, magician?"

"Blacksmith, more like." 

Janey grinned. "Yeah! I'm a blacksmith. I'm a polar bear and I'm adorable. I have a streak of pink fur but I'm also really good at ripping heads off!"

Tim vaguely wanted to argue, but decided against it. "Sounds good."

"Oh, and make us totally gay like, not just subtext. I ask her out, no doubt in anyone's minds." Tim furrowed his brows and she folded her arms. "What?"

"Do you mean like, explicit?"

"Ex- no! Good god it's not that kind of story!" Janey paused. "Wait, are you- are you offering-"

"No, no forget it-"

"Timothy Lawrence." Tim gulped as she locked eyes on him. "Have you written lesbian bear erotica before?"

"That was another LIFE, Janey!" Tim flushed beet red as Janey slammed her hand on the table and laughed herself breathless. "Not just lesbians! Any genders! And it was important to the plot, I swear!"

Janey inhaled deeply and tried to compose herself. "I'm not mad, don't worry. Just- damn dude. We might have other stories to co-write."

"Oh god." Tim waved his hand over his ECHO. "Back to this?"

-~-

Timfurry adopted his suave, infuriating attitude and irritated the hell out of himself. It was like being a super hero, meek, mild mannered true self on one hand, worse person you ever met on the other. 

Jim assembled a team for his quest alongside Nicki and Timfurry. William the international bounty hunter, Alex the feared (and very sexy, but in a bear way) assassin, Aurelia the high class contract killer, and a magical squirrel, NutBag.

-~-

"I have some questions." Janey blinked tiredly. "Don't you have to change Aurelia's name?"

"Nah. She'd be pissed if I did."

"Okay, fair enough. But NutBag?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Claptrap."

-~-

Jim looked at his team, proud of everyone except the squirrel. "Today, we set out to find a treasure trove of honey. We have a competitor, however. Z, some lady who loves her people and cares about the planet, needs to go down.

"She's been saying we're dangerous, that opening the treasure trove will anger the bees, destroy Australia, bring about an apocalypse for the entire universe, and ultimately make me a bad person. That's crazy! I say we charge in with all the violence possible, open a treasure trove, and make me supreme ruler of everything on top of a pile of bodies! Yay!" 

Timfurry would like to point out that killing people is bad.

Z wanted to go to war with Jim's country and indeed invaded while safeguarding the honey trove. While self defense is necessary, it was only over the dangerous trove. Had Jim not been an unapologetic greed beacon of sin, she would've left them alone. Everyone could be alive. 

Not quite all was lost. Timfurry had the privilege to meet Janet, the super hella gay polar bear blacksmith with pink hair who is dating the hottest bear of all time, Alex. He also met Aurelia's gay brother, because his ex wanted Timfurry to mail some tentacle monsters to him via magic rocket. Lastly, there was a rather hopeless gay sorcerer named Nakayama.

-~-

"Tim, names?"

Tim shook his head. "Jack has no idea what Nakayama's name is. It's safe." 

-~-

Nakayama was an expert in making floral arrangements, but really bad at necromancy. He was hopelessly head over heels obsessively in love with Jim.

"I have a perfect, straightforward plan!" he exclaimed, rambling at Timfurry. "I just have to capture Jim's charming essence, and then keep raising the dead until I find a body to throw my homemade soul into!"

It should be noted that this was impossible, strange, dangerous, and yet somehow real. All Timfurry saw was a cauldron full of the world's most depressing soup, but he could forsee Nakayama's concoction being a problem in the future. Just in case anyone wanted to quietly dispose of it. Might save the universe or something. 

In the end, Jim killed Z along with a lot of other people, got punched in the face by bees flying in a V formation, overthrew the country by strangling the king, and now has everyone thinking he's a hero.

He's not. Timfurry is begging you to see he's not.

Timfurry's life has since been ruined even more. Trapped with Jim's face, erased from his own identity, his life on the line for a man he hates. Dear citizens, rise up! Don't let him fool you! Right now, even writing in a corner of the world far away, this is all a risk for Timfurry, but he'll do it. He's lost his family, his cats, people that might've possibly considered being friends, his home, everything. It's worth it to tell the gruesome truth.

His family thinks he's dead, but he's very much alive, at least for now. He hopes his mother is happy, and that his second youngest sister did NOT marry Jeff from high school.

Timfurry is also still drowning in college loan debt, so buy this damn book.

-~-

Tim finished with a sigh. "This is single handedly the worst thing I've ever written."

"It's PERFECT!" beamed Janey. She reread it again and snorted. "My publisher will love this! You feel ready? You might die because of it. Even better sales, though."

Tim nodded. "I might, but I have a trick up my sleeve."

If nothing else, Tim was glad to know his family would finally understand what happened to him. Would his mother be happy about thinking her son was dead, only to find a novel about his fursona months later explaining his adventure? No. But she needed it. 

A couple days after his novella was published, Tim was called into Jack's office. Nisha stood by Jack with a copy of his book, and Jack was glowering over one of his own. "Jack," Jack said, addressing Tim with a glare.

"This is the best thing I've ever read!" Nisha held open a page at Tim's terrified face. "You're scared of me! Oh, and this quote? 'Unapologetic greed beacon of sin?' You really know us!"

"Uhhhhhh."

Jack wasn't nearly as happy. He slowly stood up and approached Tim, throwing the book at his feet. "Timothy Lawrence. You know, I thought you were smart." Jack spoke lowly, the sort of way he did when he was getting hard at the idea of strangling someone. "But you write a RIDICULOUS book slandering me, making up all the names and writing about bears for some goddamn reason, and you literally put your whole fucking name on it!" 

Tim shrugged. "I saw that book too. It's just a kids book with you know, profanity and violence. Modern stuff."

Jack coughed and broke into laughter, jeering and loud. "Oh! Oh this is fucking good! You DENY you did this! Ooooooh my god!"

"I didn't write it. You're looking at a lot of coincidences."

Nisha snorted. "Own up, kid. You did a good job."

Jack coiled his hand into a fist and grabbed Tim's collar with the other one. "You. Timothy. You wrote this, and you're about to goddamn regret it. Your contract has been breached about a hundred different ways, and-"

"I don't know who you're talking about." Jack stared at Tim as he giggled. "That name doesn't belong to anyone." 

Jack's eyes lit up with anger and he punched Tim hard, knocking out a tooth. "I'm keeping you just because of that pretty face." Jack viciously kicked his ribs. "You goddamn BRAT!"

Tim laid on the floor, feeling victorious as Jack and Nisha left to go be violent elsewhere. He was in pain, but he laughed to himself. He was too valuable to kill.

And you can't sue a man who doesn't exist.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah this is a thing I wrote lmao


End file.
